2005-05-04 04:00:00 PDT Sacramento -- A state Senate committee approved a $7.7 billion bond proposal Tuesday that would help pay for the new eastern span of the Bay Bridge, along with a variety of transportation, port and levee projects throughout the state.

The proposed bond would go on the November 2006 ballot as part of a bailout package for the eastern span that would eventually raise tolls on all Bay Area bridges except the Golden Gate by a dollar.

The measure would allocate most of the $7.7 billion in bond funding for infrastructure projects throughout the state, including about $1.3 billion for seismic retrofit of bridges. Most of that money would pay for the eastern span.

Perata's bond would also pay back $2.3 billion in gas tax money that the state has borrowed from funds set aside under Proposition 42, which voters approved in 2002. Such borrowing has forced numerous local transportation projects to be delayed indefinitely.

If Perata can get the bill passed this summer, he said, the Legislature can "shuffle money around" to resume work on the stalled portion of the Bay Bridge project until after the bond goes to the ballot.

The bond measure is Perata's vision for how the disagreement with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger over how to finish the eastern span should be resolved - - with the state picking up some of the $3.2 billion in overruns and Bay Area drivers picking up some.

Negotiations with the Schwarzenegger administration, however, have made little progress. The governor wants to junk the proposed single-tower suspension design in favor of extending the causeway now under construction all the way to Yerba Buena Island. The Bay Area would be required to pay nearly the full cost of the overruns by raising tolls to $4 and refinancing bonds on existing toll revenue.

Schwarzenegger spokeswoman Margita Thompson reiterated the administration's opposition to Perata's bond measure Tuesday. The governor "doesn't believe that borrowing money that has to be repaid by state taxpayers is the right way to go," Thompson said.

It's also unclear how the Perata plan would be reconciled with a different proposed bond in the Assembly, where Democratic leaders have been developing their own transportation plan. But they have indicated willingness to work with Perata.

"Sen. Perata has made an interesting proposal. I am open to all ideas and want to take the time to study the details," said Assemblywoman Jenny Oropeza, D-Long Beach, chairwoman of the Assembly Transportation Committee.

Perata and Democratic Sen. Tom Torlakson of Antioch, chairman of the Senate Transportation Committee, have enlisted several Democratic co-sponsors from outside the Bay Area for SB1024, including Sens. Mike Machado of Linden (San Joaquin County) and Christine Kehoe of San Diego, as well as a few legislators from the Los Angeles area.

Perata hopes to lure some Republicans with promises of transportation funding for projects in their districts. But there was little sign of that Tuesday.

Sen. Tom McClintock, R-Thousand Oaks, criticized Perata's plan, saying people who use bridges and ports should pay for any new construction instead the cost being spread among all state taxpayers. He noted that the original construction of the bridges was funded through tolls.

"This is a radical and entirely unsound departure" from the traditional method of funding such projects, McClintock said.